We Moved to Myanmar!

Telling my friends and family that we were moving to Myanmar mostly came with a lot of questions.

For example: Myan…what? Where is that? Is that even a country? And Why?

We moved to Myanmar

I was expecting questions like those as Myanmar has a interesting history. It is the second most closed off country in the world after North Korea. They also changed their name from Burma to Myanmar because Burma is the name the British gave them. It is quite a big country. It’s surrounded by India, Bangladesh, Laos, Thailand and China.

I wanted to do some research on the country and as well as the city we would be living in. They opened up the country for trading and tourism in 2012. Because of that, I didn’t expect to find well known businesses except for the new KFC they opened in Yangon.

I was completely wrong! After hearing about that one KFC, I figured it would be hard to get the brands of Make-up and Shampoo that I like but boy was I wrong! There’s an amazing mall in our neighborhood with shops like Nike, Mango and L’Occitane. I’ve also seen a few other malls like this one, so yes the shopping is decent here.

I’ve been blown away by how easy and convenient the move has been so far. The apartment the school set us up in is a lot bigger and nicer than I expected. There was plenty of apartments to choose from and that will only expand. A lot of foreign investors have been funneling money into Myanmar and started building beautiful apartment buildings.

Beautiful Sunrise

About the school, It’s huge! The local teachers have been really nice and helpful. The foreign teachers have been very welcoming and have included us in some of their weekend events. The students also have been great. I’m astounded by their level of English. This doesn’t feel like I’m teaching ESL at all. Its pretty much just like teaching students back home with English being their native tongue.

I teach reading and writing to my upper primary classes and Spanish to upper secondary. I’m kept quite busy with Spanish as I must come up with my own lesson plan but the Primary classes have been easy and all the materials needed for class are prepared for me. I also only teach 17 hours…. Let that sink it for a moment. That’s a major reason to teach abroad.

Well, that has been my first impression of Myanmar. There is still a lot to learn and discover during our year here.

Have you visited Myanmar before? I’d love to hear about your experience.

Mingalaba Myanmar 🙂

GE